Last week AMD performed an impressive coup-de-data-centre against Intel, acquiring server manufacturer SeaMicro for its intellectual property – of which Intel once sought. Now, in a brave act to save face, Intel has said that it wasn’t even interested in SeaMicro in the first place.

“We weren’t interested,” said Diane Bryant, the general manager of Intel’s data center group, to Wired Enterprise. “We looked at the fabric and we told them thereafter that we weren’t even interested in the fabric.”

The IP behind the fabric is one of the reasons why SeaMicro is an asset to AMD. While the exact technical details are a protected trade secret, this technology apparently is a more power-efficient vehicle for transmitting data though server farms than Ethernet or InfiniBand.

Ms. Bryant’s disinterested sentiment is a notable change from the previously warm relationship that existed between Intel and SeaMicro. In early January the two companies hosted a joint press conference, where SeaMicro announced it was planning on shipping power-efficient servers with Intel’s Xeon chips.

Now, Ms. Bryant claims that Intel has its own fabric plans in the works. Speaking to Wired Enterprise she said, “We believe we have a compelling solution; we believe we have a great road map. We just didn’t feel that the solution that SeaMicro was offering was superior.”

AMD, in contrast, is still confident they have made a strategic acquisition.

“With the acquisition of SeaMicro, we believe we will have the best server IP portfolio in the marketplace,” AMD spokesman Phil Hughes said.